What is meant by "reproduction" in the description of this exercise?
The terminology of this exercise is not standard. What is referred to as "reproduction" in the exercise is usually referred to as "selection".

The term "reproduction" does indeed seem conceptually closer to the notion of crossover or recombination (these two are the same thing), which is probably where your confusion has arisen.

See the excellent (and freely-downloadable) 'Essentials of Metaheuristics' for an introduction to the usual terminology for evolutionary algorithms.